Fury rematch with Wilder agreed – so Joshua must wait
Deontay Wilder has activated the contractual rematch clause for a trilogy fight with Tyson Fury, with the heavyweight championship bout expected to take place in the US in July, according to promoters Frank Warren and Bob Arum.
Fury defeated the Alabaman with a seventh-round stoppage on Feb 22 in Las Vegas to claim the World Boxing Council crown, and the No1 position in boxing’s blue riband division.
It was one of the greatest comeback victories in the sport’s history. Fury had beaten obesity, addictions and mental health issues to reclaim a heavyweight belt, having won three belts five years ago when the “Gypsy King”, a Lancastrian from the traveller community, defeated Wladimir Klitschko in Germany.
Warren and Arum confirmed separately that the third fight is on.
“Wilder has exercised his right and we have to keep to it,” Warren said. “Obviously we would have liked Fury to fight Anthony Joshua, with all the belts on the line, but that fight will have to wait until the autumn.”
Joshua, the WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO champion, is now expected to fight Bulgarian Kubrat Pulev in a mandatory IBF bout in London in June, at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium or, possibly, Twickenham.
Wilder conceded a five-year reign and his unbeaten record to Fury in the second encounter between the fighters, with Arum confirming that the event returned pay-perview numbers of 1.2million buys in the US. Champion and challenger are believed to have earned more that £22 million each from the showdown.
Should Fury and Joshua come through their next tests, Arum said they could meet before the end of the year. Saudi Arabia, where Joshua regained his belts last December in his rematch against Andy Ruiz Jnr, has been suggested as the venue for what would be the richest fight in British boxing history, valued at over £100 million.
Wilder insisted in a video on his social media that he would reclaim the title. “I will rise again. I am strong. I am a king; you can’t take my pride. I am a warrior. I am a king that will never give up. I’m a king that will fight to the death,” he said.
“And if anyone doesn’t understand that, they don’t understand what it is to go to war. I will rise like a phoenix from the ashes.”
Meanwhile, in Texas, Britain’s longest-reigning world champion, Kal Yafai, suffered his first career defeat by losing the WBA world super-flyweight title against fourweight world champion Roman Gonzalez. The Nicaraguan dominated the bout and drew Yafai, from Birmingham, into a toe-to-toe fight, creating clever angles and out-timing him. “Chocolatito”, as the 32-year-old has come to be known, finished the contest with a two-punch combination in the ninth round, the final punch a right hook from which Yafai was simply unable to recover.